1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to apparatus for cooling the environment immediately adjacent to a refrigeration type air conditioner.
2. Prior Art
The prior art is replete with methods for utilizing water to achieve a cooling effect. In addition to the well known evaporative cooling systems, much of the prior art is devoted to the direct application of water to the roof of a building. Such roof wetting techniques are espoused by the inventors in the following United States patents.
______________________________________ Crawford-Frost 964,464 Murray 2,506,936 Valient 4,175,703 Smith 4,372,493 ______________________________________
To reduce the workload on refrigeration type air conditioners when the environmental air ambient temperatures are high, many inventors support the concept of spraying water directly upon the condenser coils of the air conditioner. Typical examples of such teaching will be found in the following United States patents.
______________________________________ DiTucci 3,613,392 Barry 4,193,269 Faxon 4,240,265 Shires 4,274,266 Essex 4,290,274 ______________________________________
Certainly, maintaining the roof or a residence in a wet state is wasteful of a natural resource which grows scarcer annually. Further, constant wetting of the roof tends to adversely affect the useful lifetime of the roofing surface.
Spraying water on the condenser coils of a refrigeration type air conditioning unit is initially an effective way of reducing the load on the air conditioner during conditions of extreme environmental heat. However, as mineral deposits build up on the condenser coil cooling fins, the cooling efficiency of the condenser system is degraded and the energy required to achieve useful cooling by the air conditioner increases with a commitant increase in the cost of operation of the air conditioner.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide means for reducing the load on a refrigeration type air conditioner without adversely affecting the immediate building premises, without wastefully using water, and without building up an insulative coating of mineral deposits on the heat transfer surfaces of the condenser coils of the air conditioner.